Tag Archives: BSBP

After a week away from home, visiting friends in New York and family in Baltimore, I returned to the island to find my beads from Hannah Rossner had arrived! Woo hoo!

I love getting packages in the mail, don’t you?

I think Hannah and I were on the same wavelength when we sent each other some lamp worked beads. Check out Hannah’s blog Good River Beads and Jewelry to see her work and what she said about my contribution. (Remember, we’re participating in Lori Anderson’s Bead Soup Blog Party. It’s the bead hoarder’s edition. We’re to send beads that we’ve been hanging on to for a long time and explain why we’ve hoarded them. Okay, so neither one of us remembered to add that little note. I’d say we’re a match!)

Be sure to check out Hannah’s Etsy Shop to view her amazing work. Our styles are so different. I don’t know how she does all that intricate bead work. It’s quite detailed and beautiful. And she is a lamp work artist. Which means she makes her own beads, holding rods of glass and a steel mandrel in and out of a gas flame. I took a two day workshop in this once and believe me, I know it takes years to develop that skill.

Click on Hannah’s photo below for a link to her Etsy site. Get a cup of tea, and get ready to take some time for visual stimulation. You won’t be disappointed!

Below is the photo of the beads I sent to Hannah. (It was camouflaged in the last post.)

The lamp work bead was made by Mindy McGregor who sells on Etsy. The teardrop head pins are made by Jennie Yip, and also purchased on Etsy. The fine silver beads are made by me. (My own Etsy shop is for the jewelry I make, but you would never know because my Etsy shop is bare. Every month I think, “okay, time to remedy that.” And every month something else comes up. I even have the inventory on hand, so what is that all about? Oh. I just remembered. It’s the photography. Something that I can put off as well as I put off cleaning the oven. Once I start, I can totally get into it. I just can’t seem to want to get started.)

Hannah and I and the other participants in the BSBP have until March 25 to reveal our designs with another person’s hoarded beads. That is the big reveal day, now less than 3 weeks away. Not a bad way to jump start my creative process and start to make friends with my own writing.

I signed up to participate in the 8th annual Bead Soup Blog Party. My partner, Barbara Mason lives in Ashland, Oregon, where she divides her time between being a hospice nurse and making jewelry. her website is called Adorningly Yours, and she makes some very cool things. Be sure to check it out! This is her second time participating in the BSBP and my third time.

The rules are that when you are paired with your partner, you get in touch and exchange beads. You must include a focal piece and a clasp along with whatever other beads you want to send. Participants create something with the beads they receive, adding from their own stock if they wish. The only requirement is that you use the clasp and the focal piece in your creations. But you will likely use most, if not all, of the beads you received.

We take photos of the pieces we have made and May 3 is the big reveal date. On that day, everyone posts their photos on their own blog and you can hop from blog to blog to see what others have made. It’s a lot of fun, really gets the creative juices going, and you meet people from all over the world.

This is what I received:

It feels like a birthday having all these little packages to unwrap!

I’m not sure what this focal stone is, but it looks like it might be rhyolite. Also, this quick photo I took does not do justice to how pretty these beads are. In the top are 5 beads that are translucent green with dark stripy inclusions. Rutilated quartz? They really have me inspired today!

The two striped beads below look like some kind of agate. The silver toggle claps are great. I’m wondering if Barbara made them herself?

And, because she knows I work a lot with beach rocks from the east coast where I live, Barbara sent me a few rocks from the west coast!